"Comrade Kev, Comrade Wayne, Comrade Albo, and ahhh, Madame Julia"

I think that is the best line I've heard from King Malcolm so far, not just as Opposition Leader but in his whole (short) parliamentary career. Not only is it funny, but it also plays off the traditional tarring of Labor being socialists, along with Kev 07's close relationship with the Chinese, especially with him referencing them as 'Gang of Four'. Too bad it won't do much for him besides giving the Lateline watching crowd something to chuckle over.

It's hard for me to say as I genuinely like Turnbull's style (how could I not after watching the 4 Quarters episode of him; he cut quite a roguish, mod figure in his younger days with that great big shag of hair of his), but besides a few zingers it does not seem that he is cutting through. In fact I think he might have some of the Keating Syndrome, which is not a bad thing in my books but doesn't play too well to the punters if we look at the past 15 years of Australian political history. If we were to map our current party leaders onto the past generation of party leaders, Rudd maps fairly well with Howard; the same with Nelson and Keating.

Rudd is from the same school as Howard and the over-used business technique: KISS aka Keep It Simple Stupid. 'Decisive action has been taken' in regards to the international financial crisis but he tends to keep it at basics rather than get into particulars. He could tell you what exactly they are doing in response to the crisis, but don't you really just want to know that the government is taking action?

Turnbull on the other hand tends to go into to much detail. I wouldn't say that he wants to educate the voters and bring them along with him like Keating did, but in deference to his lawyer past, he likes to build overwhelming detail for his case when bringing it to conclusion. It was unnecessary for him on Tuesday to post the question to Comrade Kev that if Ken Henry had been found not to have passed on info from Chairman of the Reserve Bank Glenn Stevens, would he sack him. Note that he didn't ask for Henry to be sacked, but if he had been found to be deficient in his duties would the Glorious Leader Kev sack him. It is a subtle difference, but politics is about bluntness, not subtlety these days (cf: Barack Obama worked with terrorists, must be a Muslim because his middle name is Hussein even though he is a Christian, et al ad nauseum) and his Majesty Mal went too far in building his case in detail in that it enabled Chairman Kev and Comrade Wayne to mount the counterarguement that he was being reckless during an international financial crisis in attacking the leader(s) of the Australian financial regulatory system.

He wasn't helped by the absolute dickhead Liberal Senators who grilled and applied more pressure on Ken Henry than they did on the Saddam Hussein sympathisers on the AWB board. Which was then further compounded by that throwback Liberal (from WA unfortunately) Don Randall who launched an unprecedented attack on Glenn Stevens, placing the fault for the Coalition losing the 2007 election squarely at his feet for raising interest rates during the election and subsequently decreasing them in response to the financial crisis. It is a valid point until anyone with a brain takes a nanosecond to think about it, given that the Reserve Bank raised interest rates 3-4 times (can't be arsed looking it up, I'm a blogger not a fucking journalist!!) under the Rudd government to rates that were higher than under the Howard government. If Don Randall is indicative of the caliber of ordinary politician that we are sending to Canberra to represent us then I really despair for democracy. In a time when his party is supposed to be working in a bipartisian manner with the government, this loose cannon decides to accuse the Reserve Bank Governor of acting in a partisian manner. Besides opening his mouth and removing all doubt that Don Randall is an ass-clown, he also dulled King Mal's attack on the government by allowing the Gang of Four to fire back that in a week the Coalition had called for the head of Treasury to be sacked, called said head of Treasury a liar during Senate Estimates and then proceeded to attack the RBA Governor and accuse him of political bias. Quite an achievement for three days work! Who says Parliament should sit for the full five days of the working week when you have great efficiency like that!!!



In other bad news for the Coalition, as funny as it is, I don't think they are going to get much play out of the 'Socialist' attacks against Labor solely because of the way the world economic situation. When government's around the world are injecting state capital into private banks and companies, even under Bushco in the now United Socialist States of America, and the communist (and former) economies of China and Russia are going comparitively well when compared to the West, well socialism doesn't look too bad does it.

On the other hand, Labor have a real opportunity to damage Turnbull by linking him to the current crisis. Former merchant banker, multi-millionaire, part of the Syndey elite; given the option of a Socialist or a silverspoon motherfucker, the Australian people will go with the Socialist everytime. And if you disagree with this conclusion, please look at the ever increasing Family Tax Benefits and other rebates and inducements offered to families so they end up with no net income tax payable. Redistributing wealth is alive and well in Australia, we've just rechristened it with quant names like Family Tax Benefit so know one will pay much attention to it. The danger for King Malcolm is that the people do perceive him as a silverspoon mofo and he is going to struggle to change it. And as good as his 'Gang of Four' and comrade lines are, they are not going to resonate as much with the electorate as Wayne Swan's 'he thinks alco-pops is the sound that's made when you uncork a bottle of Moet' line.